Incoming!!! LSW

Very good news. Well done for monitoring the feeding visits. The weather has turned so cold, the chicks will need all the food they can get.

Looks like 4 chicks doing well in the lesser spot nest. Parents working hard. 16 visits in one hour of monitoring today @lesserspotnet.bsky.social #Birds Perhaps a week to go. Beginning to be able to hear the chicks from outside so get out looking people.

Lesser spots doing well. Lots of aphids to feed young. Female has been staying close to the nest for long periods. Could be because she has been keeping brood warm or she was worried about the local great spot who was nearby @lesserspotnet.bsky.social #Birds

Whilst monitoring a lesser spot nest yesterday the male would often feed with 5 metres of me. Lovely to watch. @lesserspotnet.bsky.social #Birds

Our LesserSpotNet volunteers have data on 4 LSW nests so far, all with 5 or 6 eggs, a good number. 3 have hatched which is very early, they will fledge around 21 May (average 30 May). So look out for adults bringing food to the nest & let regional co-ordinators know www.woodpecker-network.org.uk

Pleased to monitor our first 2026 Lesser Spotted Woodpecker nest on 2 May, found by a LesserSpotNet volunteer in the Home Counties. Nest camera showed 3 chicks just hatched + 3 eggs waiting, both adults feeding. Good to get data on clutch size. Another very early nest & the highest at 16 metres

Lesser spots male keep young warm overnight. He was still doing so until 10 today. Kept popping out to feed. Female arrived to much relief about 10. A privilege to monitor these nests for @lesserspotnet.bsky.social #Birds The birds then were swapping over every 12 minutes on average.

Lesser Spotted Wdpkr nests monitored across Southern England are generally early this year, with several already hatching. Some nests will fledge from mid-May, with young birds audible preceding week. @lesserspotnet.bsky.social @somersetbirds.bsky.social @btobirds.bsky.social @ukrbbp.bsky.social

Records from Tring, Elstree, Baldock, Northchurch, Garston, Ware, St Albans, WGC, Ware and Bishop’s Stortford, but not yet here in Sawbridgeworth

We hope you will enjoy listening to Penny's Podcast

Our #JKLMNOP #BirdoftheDay is Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. This spring, audio monitoring may reveal that we have more of these elusive woodland dwellers than we thought. Find out more with @mallalieum.bsky.social and Chris Packham. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwft... 📷 @vaughnmatthews.bsky.social

Beautiful morning for our first 'early' Breeding Bird Survey @bbs-birds.bsky.social on the South Downs. Good numbers of birds, including Red Kite building a nest, Goshawk and pr of Buzzards.

Nightingale heard singing this morning in Roundwick Copse, near Plaistow, W Sussex plus lovely spring flowers

Looking forward to @sussexornitholo.bsky.social Sussex Birds conference on 16 April. The @lesserspotnet.bsky.social stand will have all the latest exciting news of Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers in Sussex & you can bid for a trip out to the woods with us to search for LSW sos.org.uk/news/sussex-...

Chris Packham asks the questions about Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers & our own @kenandlindasmith.bsky.social and @mallalieum.bsky.social provide the answers & latest updates in this video from ecotalk at Bowyers Wood. Watch here www.ecotalk.co.uk/community-st...

Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers were detected at Bowyers Wood in East Sussex by acoustic monitoring. Chris Packham (Chief Ecologist for Ecotalk, who are restoring the woodland) interviews @kenandlindasmith.bsky.social & @mallalieum.bsky.social about all things LSW www.ecotalk.co.uk/community-st...

Signs of spring here in Chichester. Bluebells in the wildlife area on our housing estate seem early. I (LS) have childhood memories (70 years ago) of seeing Bluebells in mid-May on my Dad's birthday. Cowslips along Centurion Way

It feels like such a rare treat to encounter a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker these days (especially in the UK), so seeing this male showing so well in the Spanish Pyrenees last week really was epic! #BirdsSeenIn2026

The RBBP were delighted to be part of the fantastic workshop on Lesser Spotted Woodpecker monitoring & research, organised by @lesserspotnet.bsky.social in Kent at the weekend. There’s amazing progress being made by enthusiasts across England and Wales #ornithology #UKbirding

Recent efforts are finding LSW at previously undiscovered sites, with passive acoustic monitoring being a game-changer. Now is the best time to find this elusive species - get tips on how to find them, as well as a new guidance note on acoustic recording, at www.woodpecker-network.org.uk

What a weekend! It was a privilege for Kent to host 2026 @lesserspotnet.bsky.social workshop in the Blean! Interesting discussions had between different regions, good connections made, exciting things ahead. Some Lesser Spots didn’t go a miss either @kentishplover.bsky.social @ukrbbp.bsky.social

Read all about when @mallalieum.bsky.social met with Chris Packham to discuss the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and how, with the help of passive recording we may start to understand the true numbers in Sussex woodland. sos.org.uk/news/spottin... #UkBirding #Sussexbirds

Success! Lesser spotted woodpeckers, a male and female pair. The morning after the lesser spotted woodpecker workshop. @ukrbbp.bsky.social @lesserspotnet.bsky.social

Very positive Lesser Spotted Woodpecker news from Sussex in this video of a discussion between Chris Packham and Mark Mallalieu

Out deploying audio recorders today in the hope of detecting Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers in Cambs. First singing Chiffchaff plus Comma and lots of Brimstones.

With good weather forecast we put our sound recorder out in this lovely looking wet woodland near Petworth, hoping to detect Lesser Spotted Woodpecker calls and drums. The Sussex LSW survey has got off to a great start with positive results from several locations. No luck for us yet. 🫣

Enjoyed Sussex Biological Recorders Seminar last weekend. Lots of interest in @lesserspotnet.bsky.social & @sussexornitholo.bsky.social display about our Lesser Spotted Woodpecker survey in Sussex using passive sound recorders. Plan to survey 100 1xKm squares with wet woodland across the county.

After our talk about Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers at @berksbirdclub.bsky.social thrilled to be given this woodcut monoprint on vintage wallpaper by the artist @peterdriver.bsky.social - 'Lesser Spotted now seldom seen' highlighting their decline since the wallpaper was made. Thank you Peter

Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers – reasons for optimism! An in person talk by Ken Smith on 18 February for Berkshire Ornithological Club at University of Reading. Details here berksoc.org.uk/events/lesse...

And we’re off! With conditions less than favourable so far, it was good to get out to the Blean. Between 5-6 birds, including drumming and two territorial females ‘chittering’ started the LSW season off nicely #kentbirding @lesserspotnet.bsky.social

As part of @sussexornitholo.bsky.social Lesser Spotted Woodpecker survey using passive acoustic monitoring. We put our sound recorder out today hoping for fine weather on Saturday when LSW may be calling & drumming. Nice looking wet woodland habitat in the Weald near Midhurst @btobirds.bsky.social

Our new guidance note/protocol for using sound recorders to detect Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers gives practical details for using Song Meter Mini & Micro recorders from Wildlife Acoustics in woodland with suitable habitat & has proved a great success www.woodpecker-network.org.uk/index.php/ne...

Farewell to Birdwatching Legend and Sussex naturalist - Lawrence G. Holloway, who has died aged 94. In 1965 he invented and pioneered 'Ornitholidays' the very first birdwatching holidays. Initially to European destinations, eg Mallorca, the holiday idea expanded worldwide & the rest is history.

First LSW visit for 2026 and two birds seen chasing each other. Here’s a (very poor quality) video of a female. The Blean, Kent, 31st January

It's arrived! Pan-species Listing: How to Become a Super-Naturalist published by @pelagicpublishing. My first book. I am so pleased with it. It looks amazing, all those photos of incredible British species really make this a very colourful book and a celebration of how fantastic our wildlife is.

Lesser spot in the Wyre forest weather perfect for these stunning birds also 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿birds started drumming today 😀@lesserspotnet.bsky.social

An @sussexornitholo.bsky.social event on the downs above Shoreham with a talk on changing farm practices, stewardship and sustainable farming initiatives, farm bird recoveries and a walk (with overflying Peregrine, Buzzard, Skylark and Finch flocks). Encouraging. @btobirds.bsky.social #ukbirding

1/2 Curlew – wonderfully charismatic, desperately threatened and in need of urgent action if they are to remain part of our landscape. That’s why the launch of the UK Curlew Species Action Plan yesterday in the House of Lords is so important. #Ornithology #Curlew

Lovely to see so many @hnhsoc.bsky.social members and guests at a private view for the 'Wildlife for the Record' exhibition at North Hertfordshire Museum this week. I gave a talk marking the end (almost) of the HNHS 150th anniversary year. www.hnhs.org/news/north-h...

Thanks to everyone who came along at #BES2025 to chat about my work on phenological synchrony with @kenandlindasmith.bsky.social and @piedflynet.bsky.social Even for specialist species, mismatch may only matter in years where resources are scarce 🐦🐛 If I missed you at the conference, get in touch!

If you're at the @britishecologicalsociety.org #BES2025 in Edinburgh and interested in #phenology, come and find me for a chat about how resource abundance modulates the impacts of the trophic #mismatch. My poster is A17.21 in the Cromdale Hall, and I'll be there from 6pm this evening! 🌳 -> 🐛 -> 🐦

Very pleased to announce that my recent paper in Oecologia "Trophic generalism in the winter moth: a model species for phenological mismatch" won the journal's 2024 Ehleringer Prize for student research! 🏆 You can read more about the paper and the award below 👇 link.springer.com/journal/442/...

Great to see three of our Sussex birders involved in co-authoring the LSW paper in the Dec copy of British Birds. PAM will be an important tool in the next National Bird Atlas. @sussexornitholo.bsky.social @britishbirds.bsky.social @mallalieum.bsky.social @kenandlindasmith.bsky.social

Our paper in December's @britishbirds.bsky.social describes success in using sound recording for detecting Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. We found Lesser Spots still present in woodlands where they have not been seen/heard for years. This is very exciting www.woodpecker-network.org.uk/index.php/ne...

1/ A new study from @lesserspotnet.bsky.social & BTO in @britishbirds.bsky.social looks at how passive acoustic monitoring is an effective way of surveying Lesser Spotted Woodpecker ➡️ www.bto.org/LSWBioacoust... #bioacoustics #ornithology @simongillings.bsky.social @hosbirding.bsky.social

Wonderful morning at the Wyre forest rewarded with 20 min of a pair of lesser spotted woodpecker crisp morning perfect @lesserspotnet.bsky.social

See this encouraging update about Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers in the UK. We will have the pleasure of hearing more from Ken and Linda Smith of the LesserSpot Network when they give a talk for BOC about their work, on 18th February 2026 (get it in your diary). #ukbirding

It’s out in time for Christmas. Again! #hertsbirds #ukbirding

Something to celebrate - our 2025 Lesser Spotted Woodpecker report - successful breeding season, the most nests monitored & highest number of chicks fledged per nest since we started in 2015. Acoustic monitoring giving amazing results too, download here www.woodpecker-network.org.uk/images/L_S_W...